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Project Noah Nature School
3 mm long cream colored lady beetle larva.
Found on a weed growing in the 300' hedgerow we planted last year as part of our plan to create a wildlife habitat on our land.
Spotted on Jun 5, 2012
Submitted on Jun 6, 2012
7 Comments
Abigail, I went out again later & found a pupa on an adjacent plant so I've added a photo. I don't think it is of the same species though as it looks like the C7's we commonly find in the meadow. Maybe you can confirm?
Thank you for checking! I am pretty sure it's in subfamily Coccinellinae, possibly genus Hippodamia or Coccinella, but I just can't place it. I'm going to be very interested in seeing any other lady beetle larvae and adults that come out of that hedge!
Hi Abigail, I just went out for a few minutes & checked all the plants in the vicinity where I remembered seeing this but unfortunately no luck. I will take another look later in case it was on the underside of a leaf & I missed in.
I can take a look Abigail! I vaguely remember where I saw it!
I'm still stumped after going over a couple of larval keys and the identified larvae on BugGuide.net! This larva looks like it is prepupating, so it may actually be in the same place or very close to it as a pupa. Do you think you could find that weed again? Sometimes the only way to ID a larva is to collect the pupa and see what adult comes out!
Thanks Abigail!
This definitely isn't P. vigintimaculata; I'm getting out my lady beetle larva key right now to see if I can tell what it is! It could be something very exciting indeed; I don't often seen lady beetle larvae I don't recognize.